1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to generating and displaying the status of a numeric system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A problem with current financial planning software for both individuals and businesses is that they do not display the financial status of a person or business in a way that is easy to use and understand. For example, conventional spreadsheet displays can show numerical values for an individual's income, assets, liabilities, accounts and expenses, but do not do a good job of showing how these items are related. When a person changes one of these values, either by inputting a hypothetical value, adjusting a tax rate, adjusting an interest rate, etc. the spreadsheet will display new results for these items but does not allow a user to see what specific factors caused the new results. Even displaying results using bar graphs or pie charts which are more visually appealing do not solve this problem, because such graphs and charts, like a spreadsheet display, do not visually show the relationship between different items. Generally, all that the graphs and charts can do is show how income or expenses are divided up and not how changes in income and expenses affect the values of bank accounts or tax liabilities.
Existing spreadsheets also have difficulty in showing how, the status of a numeric system, such as a household budget or a business budget or inventory varies over time. For example, a typical spreadsheet program requires that a separate spreadsheet be set up for each individual time period for which a user wishes to see the status of a household or business budget. Therefore, a conventional spreadsheet only allows a user to see a snapshot of a numeric system, such as a budget at certain fixed periods of time, unless a user, creates a spreadsheet for each individual day a cumbersome process. With a conventional spreadsheet program, a user cannot simply enter a time period, such as three days in the future, and have the spreadsheet calculate the values of all of the items in a household budget or a business financial plan, if an individual spreadsheet has not been previously created for the desired day. Therefore, conventional spreadsheet programs only provide fixed periodic information on the status of a numeric system and do not allow for the dynamic analysis of numeric systems.